We discussed how these different words are used in conversation. Shades are another word for sunglasses. Shade is the area that is hidden from the sun and is in shadows. A 'compliment' is when you tell someone you like something about them. Tint is a word used when windows are darkened (unfortunately this is misleading).

In art terms, a Tint is a color plus white.A Shade is a color plus black.Complementary colors are those opposite of each other on the color wheel. For instance, orange and blue are complements, red and green are complements, and yellow and purple are complements.

Students each began by doing a complementary colors. They chose the two complements they wanted to use and began by painting one color dot on their page. Next they added just a teeny tiny bit of the complementary color to that color, mixed it well, then painted a thin ring around the dot. Next, again, they added a teeny tiny bit of the complementary color, mixed it well, then painted a ring around the first. Students continued this until they filled up the entire sheet of paper.

The next class students did the same technique with tints and shades. For the tints, students started with a white dot in the center and slowly added a color to it. For the shade, students began with a color dot in the middle and slowly added black.

To finish up this project, students each selected their two (of the three) favorite paintings and glued them down on black paper together. While they were doing this, I heard multiple students saying things such as "My mom is going to love this" and "These turned out so pretty" and other joyful exclamations!